Hey Montana, Take Your Daughter Back
by ldncalling
Summary: "When you believe in something, that's what makes it real." But what if she believes, knows, that nothing can be real, yet she feels it and lives it every day? They say if a pinch doesn't hurt that you're dreaming, but she can't wake up.
1. Prologue

I drummed my hands on the steering wheel of my black 1993 Volkswagen Jetta, squinting to see through the thick sheets of rain that my windshield wipers could only keep away for mere seconds. The road beneath me was quickly becoming a small river which kept my speed down well below the limit for fear of hydroplaning. There were three voice mail messages from my mother on my cell phone in the cup holder beside me, missed calls that I'd refused to take my hand off the wheel or eyes off the road to answer. She'd be worried, but at least I'd be safe.

I don't know why I agreed to drive all the way from Jordan, Montana to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the worst storm of the season to date. It wasn't like Abby Adderson and I were best friends anymore or anything, but it was her father's wedding – his first marriage, since the birth of Abby had been an accident – and I promised I'd be there for her, since she hated the whole idea of it.

"I can't drive in this shit," I sighed, my shoulders slumping. I was out in the middle of nowhere, thick forest on either side of me, not a gas station or roadside motel to be seen. If I pulled off now I'd just run the battery dry to keep the heat on, and then what? Hope that someone else came along before I froze or starved to death?

"Or drive the car off into a tree 'cause I can't see anything." Finally I decided that it might be worth it to stop and wait for the storm to pass me. I had blankets in the backseat, and some junk food in my backpack. I could listen to my mum's messages too, even though I knew exactly what they'd say: "Why don't you come home, sweetie? It's too stormy out to drive. Tori, pick up your phone and talk to me, be careful, don't crash!"

I put my signal on and began to steer myself to the shoulder. It felt like a dream – a nightmare – when the wheel suddenly became light and useless, and I felt the back end begin to slide. I was hydroplaning.

"No!" I shouted, trying in vain to remember what you were supposed to do in a situation like this, as the car careened closer to the edge, where it would drop off a small cliff and smash me right into the forest floor, and probably a few trees along the way.

Brakes? Probably not, but I slammed my foot down on them anyway, which just made it worse, and the last thing I could do while my car was flung off the road was to cry out prayers to a God I didn't believe in.

* * *

><p>"She's coming to, Mrs Dunn," were the first words I heard in what felt like forever. My whole body ached and I was scared to open my eyes. How mangled was my body? Was my face scarred, burnt, and bruised? How long had I been lying in the wreck before someone came to help me?<p>

"Oh, my baby girl," said a voice with a southern accent. My mother didn't have an accent at all – we lived in Montana, not Alabama. "Oh Victoria, I was so scared. I told you not to walk through the Negro community, oh honey."

I forced my eyelids open to the face of a woman with short, dark brown curly hair and thick, long, fake eyelashes. She looked vaguely familiar, like someone I might have seen in town before, but she certainly wasn't my mother.

"Who are you?" I croaked. My throat was so dry it felt like it was on fire, but I had no saliva in my mouth to swallow.

Her jaw dropped and she threw her gloved hands up in the air. "Oh lord, my baby's lost her mind!"

A nurse led the harried woman out of the room while another helped me to sit up against a thick pillow. A doctor was on my other side, in an old uniform, surrounded by out of date hospital equipment.

"Hello, my name is Dr Carpenter," he introduced. "May I ask you a few questions, just to see how you're doing?"

I nodded nervously, my brain rattling painfully in my skull.

"What is your name?"

That was easy. "Victoria Esther Dunn."

He smiled encouragingly. "Victoria, when were you born?"

Even better. "The twenty-third of April."

"Perfect," he complimented. "Now, what year is it?"

I was about to get one hundred percent on the few things I was sure of since waking up in this whack job hospital. Maybe if I got them all right he'd see I was sane and okay, let me go, and I could get away from the crazy woman and find my real mother.

"It's 2010," I said. "October 2010."

His brow creased. "Would you like to try that again?"

"Uh ... no?" I was sure my face mirrored his look of blatant confusion and concern, and for good reason. Had I been in a coma or something? Had I really been out that long? Maybe I did have brain damage.

"Victoria," the doctor said, slowly and calmly, "it's April, 1965."


	2. Chapter One

The woman – my mother – stood in the doorway, exhausted and worried, her brow furrowed. Frowning makes wrinkles, she'd say at least once before noon every day, but it didn't seem to matter now because she was doing it anyway.

"You've been so different since your accident," she whispered. "It's like you're not even Victoria anymore." I could hardly hear her over the piano echoing around the empty, spacious attic. My tempo was slow and my notes low, not helping the mood in the room at all, but I had nothing to be happy about.

"You could say that," I muttered back. I was in a dark wine coloured dress, my hair in curls and pinned up, with no makeup on. I was still in bare feet, though my mother was in high heels, the maid in her flat shoes, my father downstairs already wearing his loafers for work even an hour before he needed to be at the office. My mother called it trashy. Well I wasn't leaving the house, so whose business was it?

She tried again. "Carolyn has been asking about you. The young girl down the street? She's stopped taking etiquette lessons since you've stopped."

I didn't even look up at her to reply. I couldn't bear to look into her face, to see the hurt and confusion that was all my fault. But I wasn't her Victoria, I didn't know who she was or why I was in her house, and I couldn't pretend otherwise. I was scared. I didn't even know what sort of accident I was supposed to have been in to her, because from the sounds of it, I walked through a neighbourhood populated by African Americans, and I was jumped, beat. I had no bruises though, no cuts or swelling or scars.

"It's been two months and you haven't even left the house, you're not eating – you're pale and skinny and you look sick and angry all the time and I just don't know what to _do_ Victoria!" Her voice hitched; she was holding back tears.

I slammed my hands down on the keys. "It's not all about _you_, mother!" I shouted, the loudest I'd been since waking up. "Not everything revolves around you! Don't you think that this is hard for me too? That maybe that's why I've just been up here, trying to avoid all of you?"

I stormed out, around her, down the stairs, to my bedroom and the bed I'd never slept in. Victoria's clothes – my clothes – were hanging in the closet, but none of them fit anymore. I'd lost so much weight I could see my ribs, each one, clear as day.

I'd been sleeping on the floor in the attic, wearing the same dirty, ratty dress since I'd come home from the hospital. My hair was unwashed, and deodorant and perfume were the only things keeping me from smelling like a homeless man. I hated dresses, I hated having baths instead of showers, and I hated this plantation home out in the middle of a field of corn. None of it was mine.

"Victoria, please." My mother knocked on the door, and I strode over to it to turn the lock. Then I pulled a pair of what my mother called _work day pants_ out of a dresser – off-white, not cotton or denim but I wasn't sure what really – and went at them with a pair of scissors until they were shorts, with the hems rolled up, something I would have worn back home in this sweltering summer heat.

I tucked a white tee shirt into the shorts, put on a pair of sneakers that were kicked under the bed – probably hidden from mother – and pushed open the bedroom window. I was on the second story, but tree branches thick enough to walk on scraped against the window every time the wind blew, so I had an easy escape to the ground below.

By my standards I looked acceptable, even after pulling my thick, long hair into a messy bun high on the back of my skull, but I knew that no one else would think the same. I sprinted as fast as I could down the dirt road, beginning to sweat and starting to cry. I couldn't stop, no matter how much I wanted to.

The town spread out in front of me, but I didn't stop. Even as people called my name, waved to me, looked down on me and shouted about what I was wearing, and how indecent it was to be wearing shorts of such size, I didn't even slow my pace. Like Forrest Gump, all I could do was keep moving, it was the only thing that made me feel better, made me feel like I was actually trying to fix things for myself. Not that I could run home – I didn't swallow a flux capacitor.

The buildings began to get shabbier, the houses more run down and the lawns overgrown, the further I went. As the sun came up full in the sky and burned onto my bare neck, only then did I manage to come to a stop.

I had no clue where I was. There were no street signs, but I figured these people had to be poor. On every side of me the houses had peeling paint, broken fences, boarded windows, and parched yellow front grass.

Like me. Unhinged, closed up, empty and angry and confused. One second I would feel full up of everything – insulation, tears, questions, and ideas. Then the next I was an empty shell sitting on a piano bench playing music I never knew before, but somehow my fingers knew just where to go.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

I'd dropped onto my knees without realizing; let the tears stream down my unwashed face. I probably looked a mess, like a tramp crawling around looking for change. Rocks were cutting into my knees, leaving indents, if not cuts and bruises. Finally, maybe something that would leave a mark. That would let me know that I was here, alive, real, if nothing else.

Warm hands found their way to my shoulders, then upper arms, helping me back up onto my feet. They lead me forwards, through an open gate and up a rickety porch, and all the while I kept my eyes to the ground and my hands at my sides. I couldn't speak, could hardly listen, was using all my strength to keep myself upright. My mind was screaming, nonsense and anger and anything in the world that a person would hate to feel. My chest was caving in, I knew it; broken ribcage would poke at my heart until it exploded. It was the only likely outcome.

"Hey, Soda, would you help me out?" the voice called to somebody else. Then a second set of hands was on me and people were talking, voices buzzing all around my head, I was going this way and that and nobody was bothering to ask me what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go.

I had no control anymore. Nothing was in my control, not even me.

* * *

><p>A girl helped me with taking a bath and brushing my teeth and hair. I looked at her face; it was kind and soft, with eyes like the sky and silky blonde hair. Even with all her makeup she was nice to look at. Kind, too; she didn't say a thing about my body, about my mind, as I was put back into my tee shirt and shorts and hugged. I didn't hug back, but I think she knew I appreciated it.<p>

"My name's Sandy," she introduced.

I said, "Tori," and my voice sounded rough. My throat hurt from crying, and I guess I did some yelling too because she was looking at me a little wary, like I was a loose cannon.

"Want to go out into the living room, Tori? Everyone is worried sick about you. Two-Bit found you in the street and we all want to know that you're okay."

Two-Bit? What an odd name. Was my name odd to them? I never did much studying on what was popular in the 60's. In hindsight, I probably should have paid attention in history class.

"Sure," I whispered in my strangled voice. I reached up to run my fingers through my hair, a nervous reaction. It was in the process of drying, and for the first time since I'd woken up, left to hang down to my hips in all its dark, wavy glory.

"Don't worry, I told them to be on their best behaviour," she grinned. But there was still something behind her eyes, and I thought that maybe it wasn't about me. Maybe she had her own problems that she couldn't stop thinking about either, not even when she was helping me clean up.

Maybe the world didn't revolve around me.


	3. Chapter Two

They'd budged up to make room for me on the couch, but that meant that I was sandwiched between the one with rust coloured, huge sideburns, who was the one to pull me in from off the street – Two-bit, and Sandy's boyfriend Sodapop, as he was introduced, with very blonde hair and a comforting smile.

In a worn out plaid armchair was tall and brooding Darrel, Sodapop's older brother, and on the floor in front of the coffee table was the last member of the Curtis family Triforce, short and young Ponyboy with very nice hair. Not that anyone would know what a Triforce was.

Sandy was in Sodapop's lap, which was a little awkward for everyone else but nice for me, because I'd asked her to stay close. She was the first one to talk directly to me, to help me clean up, and she was a girl. I wasn't afraid these men were going to rape and kill me, I wasn't that pretentious, but they were intimidating all at once in this little house.

"So ... thank you," I ventured to the room at large. I had a mug of hot coffee in my hands and someone had leant me a sweatshirt even though it was still hot as Hell itself outside. I was shivering and chilled – Darrel said it was because of the stress I was under and the episode I'd had. _Episode_.

Two-Bit, with an apparent lack of knowledge of personal space, put his arm around my shoulders. "No problem Tori. You looked like you coulda used a hand." He laughed like it was a joke, and everyone else chuckled, but I didn't see what was so funny.

Racist jokes were funny. Kids in The Hall were funny. Hell, even Steve Carrel was funny if you caught him in the right movie. But Two-Bit Mathews wasn't funny.

"So what happened?" Darrel asked. I was beginning to wonder if privacy was just an up and coming thing in the sixties. But the thought was replaced instantly as I began to feel bad – they'd just saved me, more or less, from absolute wreck, cleaned me up, and given me their coffee to drink. They had a right to know about my flip out – well, an edited version.

"I was ... jumped a while back," I invented. According to my mother it was true, but I couldn't remember a thing about it. As far as I knew, I'd been in a car accident, but I felt like they wouldn't believe that story. "By some blacks apparently, but I don't remember any of it. And when I woke up I was so confused, and I think my mother thinks I've gone crazy, and she keeps getting on my case, saying I've changed, she hates me I can tell."

The last part had slipped out unintentionally. I hadn't even been aware that I was thinking it, but I seemed to have known it all along. I wasn't really her daughter anymore – I wasn't the real Victoria Dunn. I was nothing but an imposter and she knew that. She could sense it.

"I doubt your mama hates you, Tori," Sandy said, crossing her arms. "Lots of people have problems when they've gone through that."

I shrugged, not wanting to fight her on it. "I guess so."

"Where're you from?" Sodapop asked, looking genuinely curious.

"Uh ... Montana," I told him, but it sounded more like a question. What if this got back to mother and she had no clue what I was on about? I wouldn't put it past her to kick me out. Sometimes she treated me with less care than the maid, and I knew enough to know that they weren't really people, not here, not yet. Our maid Julia Mae had her own bathroom ... outside.

He asked, "Who's your mom?"

That one I wasn't totally sure on. No one called her by name, just Mrs Dunn, the same way all her friends and all the maids called me Miss Victoria. But I just had a hunch. "Uh ... Barbara. Barbara Dunn, she ... well she doesn't work, but my father is a lawyer, and ... he owns the corn field just out of town there, has people to work for him on weekdays."

"Yeah my cousin used to work out there!" Two-Bit said with a smile. "They caught him stealin' corn and lemme tell you he ain't never run away from a job so fast."

Now that I could smile at.

"You have a pretty smile," Ponyboy muttered, so low that I was sure only I could hear him. I couldn't help it – the fourteen year old kid made me blush. But it was nice. He'd been the only one to say anything nice to me since I woke up.

* * *

><p>I stayed with the Curtis brothers and Sandy for most of the day, until she and Sodapop left to meet friends at the movies. Sandy invited me to come along, but I could tell that it was a double date and I didn't want to fifth wheel, so I politely declined.<p>

I watched Ponyboy do his homework for a while – he wasn't out of school until the end of the week and it was only Monday – but by dinnertime I sensed that my welcome was overstayed and that I should leave.

"Come back tomorrow," Ponyboy offered. "There's always someone around. I'm in school 'til three and Darry works until five –" Darry was their nickname for Darrel, which I thought was cute but didn't suit him at all "—and Sodapop and Steve work at the gas station, but Soda's only part time and ..."

He started off naming names I didn't recognize, but I let him finish, promised I'd see him again and told Darrel I'd be careful on my way home, then left. I still had the sweatshirt, which was Ponyboy's I found because it looked his size, but was still a good half size or so too big for me, and thank God for it because the temperature had fallen with the night.

I was scared about not being able to find my way back, after running through the town so fast with my mind on other things, but I found that I hadn't turned more than once or twice to get where I'd ended up and I was at the dirt road in no time, with the little wooden sign at the end that said _Dunn Family Farms_. That was my family now.

Walking up the road, kicking up dust with my shoes, my fear was replaced with guilt. I'd slammed around and escaped on my mother, and she would either be heartbroken or extremely pissed off. My real mother probably would have slapped me on the backs of the legs with the wooden spoon for running out on her like that.

But I had nothing to worry about.

"Oh, Victoria!" my mother shouted with relief when I came in the front door. She hugged me close. "I was so worried about you. I'm sorry I made you leave like that."

From the couch, with the newspaper in front of his face, my grey-haired father said, "We know it isn't your fault, how you're feeling. You were in that coma for almost a month."

A month..." I repeated, slipping my hands into my pockets. A month of what – of black nothingness? What happened when you were in a coma – did you dream? Did you feel things? Was that what this was, just a coma from my car crash?

"Come on honey," Julia Mae said, slipping into the living room and tugging me away from my mother. "I kept dinner warm for ya."

"Thanks," I mumbled, smelling pork roast and potatoes. I couldn't help but compare it to the scent of baked chicken and chocolate cake in the Curtis house – it smelled more like home, their house felt warmer, and their family felt ... more united. There was no doubt in my mind that I'd be taking up Ponyboy's offer to stop by again. All of a sudden I was gripped with the urge to learn as much about them as they could possibly show me.


	4. Chapter Three

_I bugged up the dates, I know. The doctor said it was June, then two months later, surprise! Still June. So while I am trying to fix that to say April, we'll just pretend for now that I didn't do that, and it does say April, and the current date is June. Cool? Cool._

* * *

><p>Carolyn, the little girl from down the street, joined us for breakfast. Her hair was in a ponytail and she had on a skirt and blouse, but her legs were never crossed and she barely said please or thank you during the whole meal. I wasn't sure if I liked her or not, and she was only twelve years old so she had a lot of time to grow up cool or into a total brat.<p>

I was only poking at my eggs and sausage, not really hungry. This was my first venture down to the table at mealtimes – even taking last night's dinner up in the attic – and it was only because mother promised to let me go wherever I wanted as long as I was home for supper as well. I agreed instantly. He'd only extended the offer last night, but I already wanted to take Ponyboy up on spending time around his place. He was an easy kid to get along with – smart, thoughtful, and very calming.

Last night before I'd gone to sleep, I'd sneaked the scissors and the sewing machine into my bedroom. It was a loud piece of work but mother and father slept on the complete opposite side of the house, one floor below, and probably wouldn't wake up if a bomb went off in the backyard.

The skirts, dresses, and work pants I had just weren't cutting it for me. I couldn't have hemlines that covered my knees, or blouses with lace cuffs. My tee shirts were too big and everything was too loose, and as much as I knew I needed to blend in, I couldn't help but long for the stylish, indie-reminiscent clothes in my closet in Montana ... in 2010. I also knew that nothing I would make would help me to fit in in Tulsa, but that was okay because I didn't plan on staying long. I was going to find a way back to my time if it killed me, because after months, I was tired of the Twilight Zone.

I kept three dresses in their original state, all of them casual and brightly coloured, to wear during the morning and into town. Last night Ponyboy had explained about the Socials and the Greasers a little bit to me, and I gathered that Socials were rich, Greasers were poor, Socials – Socs – beat up Greasers, and that if I wore shorts like yesterday on the West side of town they'd probably start ganging up on me too.

So after breakfast I packed a big, canvas purse with a homemade change of clothes and those old white sneakers, made sure my hair was as smooth as it could be in the humidity, then said goodbye to my parents and Carolyn and hurried out the door.

In 2010 I'd celebrated my sixteenth birthday in August, had my own car to drive and a valid license, and I hadn't walked anywhere since. Therefore, in June in Tulsa, I was still fifteen and required to hoof it everywhere I went, and being out of shape and underweight, I was exhausted by the time I got to the train tracks and had to sit down for a minute.

That's when Carolyn poked her head out from around an abandoned strip mall to come sit down beside me.

"What the heck do you think you're doing?" I snapped. I'd made up my mind – she was a brat and a half.

"I wanted to see where you were going." The look on her face wasn't smug or obnoxious, only curious and a bit nervous, so I instantly felt bad. "We're not supposed to be over here, you know. We'll get robbed."

I couldn't help but laugh a little. "We won't get robbed. I met some people over here last night, they helped me. And they said I could come back anytime, so I am."

Her little mouth made a big O shape and her baby blue eyes got wide. "Can I come too?"

I couldn't turn her away, not with so much blatant wonder in her eyes. I'd been the same way on multiple occasions – skipping school, drinking for the first time, sneaking out to make out with a boy on a school night. It was the thrill of doing something dangerous, and it looked like she'd never had that before.

So I said, "Sure, but we've gotta find some place for me to change. I'm not going around in this stupid dress all day."

"I think it's a nice dress," she mumbled, but nevertheless followed me into an empty, graffiti covered train car to slip into another pair of shorts – these ones fashioned from the material from a skirt with too many holes in the bottom, using a traced pattern from the first pair I cut the other day – and a pale red tee shirt with the sleeves and collar snipped. I cut some off the bottom too, so it hung unevenly just around the waistline of my pants.

"You should help me make new clothes," Carolyn suggested, looking in awe at my new outfit. "My mum would have a fit!"

"That's why we're not cutting up your clothes," I said, hitching the purse back up and putting my hand on her shoulder to lead her back out and towards the Curtis house. "When I was ... in the hospital ... I had a dream about the future, and these were the big styles."

I couldn't help but to laugh uproariously inside at her disgruntled look. That was as close to the truth as I told anyone and I could see that she wasn't sure if I was just making fun of her or not. But how else would I explain my eccentric clothing to people? They were going to think I was a skank, or crazy. Only Greaser girls wore clothes like this, but they also had big hair and caked on makeup, which looked ridiculous.

Since coming to, I hadn't put on any makeup. I didn't even know if I owned any, and if I had any money to buy some if I wanted to. Before I wouldn't have left the house without it – even though my friends said I was the spitting image of Emma Watson, except with long dark hair and bottle green eyes, I just didn't feel pretty enough without it. But no one here had seen me with, so what did I care? I wasn't trying to attract anyone, I was trying to survive.

It was only about noon when Carolyn and I passed the DX gasoline station that Sodapop and his friend worked at, according to Ponyboy. And true enough; the handsome blonde was outside, pumping gas into a beat up truck. He smiled and waved and I waved back, and was thinking of calling out to ask where Sandy was, but thought better of it. A surly looking young man with perfectly curled, greased locks came out to stand beside his buddy and he gave me an almighty scowl. That was my first clue that Steve Randle didn't like me one bit.

"He looks mean," Carolyn whispered.

A thought suddenly struck me. "Carolyn, how come you're not in school?"

She shrugged. "The middle school gets out earlier. Why?"

"'Cause my friend is still in school," I said. "So I'm hoping someone will be at his house."

No one was. We sat down on the front steps, basking in the sunlight. It was so hot and only June, I didn't know what I was going to do once August hit. I wasn't used to the heat.

Around one o'clock, after we played a rousing game of Checkers using rocks and a chalk-drawn board, someone finally did show up. I didn't recognize him at all – blonde with no hair grease, a leather jacket, cold eyes, and a very angry face. I figured he was a friend of the Curtis' though so I smiled. Carolyn turned her face away.

He didn't smile back, but looked at me appraisingly. "Who're you and what the hell are you wearin'?"

"I'm Tori Dunn, and I'm wearing clothes."

"Who's the little girl?"

She whispered, "Carolyn Carpenter." My doctor's daughter, I hadn't known that.

"You girls wanna come with me, get a Coke? No one'll be back 'til three at least. I'm meetin' Johnny."

Was Johnny just as hard and angry as he looked?

"What's your name?" I asked, realizing he hadn't even told us.

"Dallas," was his simple reply, then he turned and began to walk away. "You comin' or not?"

I raised my eyebrows at Carolyn, who shrugged nervously, so we decided to brush the rocks off the front porch and follow Dallas out the gate and down the road. He didn't seem like he invited people to go with him places like this often, and I didn't want to sit outside until three o'clock, so what did I have to lose?


End file.
